History

The Roanoke Disc Golf Club was founded in May of 2012. The club was established on the idea that with other players to enjoy the sport with, there could be some friendly competition and potential friends to be made. After making a group on Meetup.com and posting a few flyers at the local courses, people started showing to weekly events. With a slow start in the first 6 months and a season of bag tags, the club started to attract attention through word of mouth among the local disc golf players. In the summer of 2014 the RDG Club built the Greenfield Disc Golf Coursewith the approval and help of Botetourt county. Greenfield was just the catalyst the club needed in order to grow. While building and maintaining the Greenfield Disc Golf Course, the RDG Club nurtured some natural leaders who had joined the club for more than just playing disc golf, but growing the sport as well. Just 4 months after the course was built, the first All Hyzers Eve tournament took place at Greenfield and was a huge success. When the club reached about 30 followers on Meetup.com the decision was made by the club leadership team to transfer the social media presence to Facebook, with the creation of Facebook pages/groups.

In 2015, RDG started a doubles program at the new course. Disc golf education clinics and membership packages for paying members were also implemented that year as well. Around this same time, the Highland Disc Golf Course was built in the city of Roanoke, and the course started helping the club engagement get to the next level with weekly events taking place in the heart of the city. The well designed 9 hole course in the proved very popular with it's unique layout and convenience to most places in Roanoke. As the club evolved, the leadership team filed for the Roanoke Disc Golf Club to be a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in late 2016. This was a huge development in the club's history, and helped to establish a formalized leadership team and roles.

In 2017 RDG started designing and building the Mayflower Hills Disc Golf Course at the Explore Park. Many course design and course construction workdays went into the course and it's completion date was in May of 2018. Roanoke County spent many hours with and without our members helping to make this course possible. It's currently the only 18 hole course in Roanoke. The day after the ribbon cutting in May of 2018, the first tournament was held at Mayflower Hills and 93 players were in attendance. 2018 was also a great year in the way of community service and outreach. The club did a handful of small to large service events with the community. These events were varied, including player clinics, teaching children from a few local organizations, events at the Roanoke Y, as well as running disc golf tournaments for local festivals like Floyd Fandango and Floyd Fest.